Do you miss having not grown up as a girl?

Not sure I miss not having grown up as a girl but I have read stories of those who were raised as girls and have enjoyed the fantasy as I read along.  Sometimes I think it might have been nice to have had that experience but I did rather enjoy learning about my female side.

Transitioning as an adult, even without the surgical changes, is it's own special form of 'growing up as a girl' because you get to build with 'add ons of your own choosing, the most special of which is your name, which you would not have been able to choose otherwise.'

I would have liked my breasts to be real, not to have to shave, and other things about being a woman.   I don't miss periods at all, or the cramps that can go with them.  I'll never feel a life quickening inside me but I have known the joy of feeling that life inside my wife and listening to the twin heartbeats of wife and child.

Growing up from man child to adult woman has been different but on the whole, I would not change a thing.

Back in my college days, I had long thick shoulder length hair, a 29" waist and only weighed about 135lb. I could have passed then for sure. If the confidence to CD had struck me then things in my life would be very different by now. It's the internet's fault!

When i was a young boy when Summer came the girls would wear short cotton dresses and on a Sunday thay would have dresses whith loads of pettycoats  underneath, i was so envious i counderstand why i ust wanted to dress the same as them. When my sister started to dress me in her old clothes i was very happy, so in some ways i did (for   a period of time)  grow up a girl. So in answer to the question , yes i did miss growing up as a girl. Zoe xxx

Yes no doubt honestly I feel I was cheated out of my true life and true happiness I told this to my therapist I should have been a daughter a sister a wife a mother everything that part of being a female when as a male I thought I was womanizer but no it's watching every movement a woman makes and that where my depression an high anxiety comes from yes cheated

Yes it would have been so wonderful to go through all the physical & emotional changes. Gives me goose bumps just thinking about the makeup, 1st bra, period, kiss, prom dress, wedding, going all the way, pregnancy, nursing, so much more. Probably why I love change so much.

In contrast, I still got some of the rights of passage but much later in life and they weren't as fairy tale dramatic as I thought they would be. Being TS wasn't fun by any means as my thoughts were always on the feminine side of the street. To sum it all up, if I had grown up female I feel I would have had a better life but I would have never meet so many great folks in our "community" so there is a happy side after all.

You're definitely not alone in those thoughts, Cynthia.
Having to grow up as a physical gender you know you aren't, robs you of all the opportunities for all the social experiences you should have had.

Going through RLT and transitioning later in life doesn't help or compensate. At all.
You're transitioning AS a woman, society expects you to have had all the experiences that girls have as growing up which helps shape them societaly as women, but you're expected and required to know it and be it all without ever getting any chance to experience it.
And there's no ways for us older transgender women to have any of the group experiences which girls have as they grow up. We have to go through them alone.

Karen that's how I feel too would have made some one a good wife and mother

I kind of agree with Rosally for the most part.  I knew I was a crossdresser since i was about 13.  Of course it started with panties and grew from there.  I don't think I fully understood who I was until i was in my mid 20's.  Hell I'm not sure i do now sometimes.  So for me I'm not sure what I missed since I didn't know what i was missing at the time (if that makes sense).  I've had my own evolution and growth into the lady I am today, which I struggled with at times but have to say in retrospect that I've enjoyed and wouldn't change that at this point in my life.

While I evolved over the years I don't think I truly became "ok" with who I am until I went to see a transgender therapist in my late 30's.  After a few weeks of counseling I had a realization or my own epiphany that this therapist wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know or believe in my heart.  From that point on I accepted who I was and am quite comfortable with it.

If I grew up or was born a woman/girl I would't be who I am today and had this journey that is still being written. (too profound?)  In some ways I'm glad I wasn't born female and do not take femininity for granted.  That all came with time - 49 years and 36 of those finding myself.

Heather

Wow I hadn't realized I would strike such a chord with all of you when I started this topic.  I guess I see both sides of it.  While I do really wish I could have had the girlhood I missed out on, I DO realize that life happens the way it does for a reason and that I am the sum of all my life experiences.  I know not everyone is religious or spiritual but I do feel that God has some purpose for my life and that somehow my gender issues may be a vital ingredient that helps me find and fulfill that purpose.  Thank you all so much for the replies and comments-they really touched my heart!

Cynthia

Hi.

In my case no I did not miss out , I was very fortunate in having a Mom who gave me full rein in what I did, and knowing you were a female with out your womb ,

Yes I understand the.... what if ....had I been born a fully functioning female  would I have been much different maybe and yet would I have been ,

yes I miss not giving birth , that's the hardest detail I have , this is where being female is different im just one out of every 7000 women who have issues and cant give birth , that's the down side .

the good side I was able to do many things I really did enjoy and would not have wonted to have missed out on that , as for clothes I had no interest at all male or female and all the adornments yes I know they are lovely and yes I have and do wear them. no makeup of cause not bothered. I would be put in the tom boy type of person yes I like getting hard out working and being a grubby messy on the job and mucky in my army boots and overall,s  a bit rough and tumble if you like  as for looks sure not in your terms a feminine looking woman  sorry guys just not me. a dress or dolled up yea right under a truck more like , working on building sites or the rail bridges sure not for the faint hearted , trust me on that,   I enjoyed my life just being who I am ,

So you may think am I really female youd better belive it iv never been different , even though I worked for and with many men they would not know I was female so how did I get away with it so long I never said a word , and my facial feature,s  were /are more masculine my body more female with out my womb and breasts, when your body is a mis match and hormones as well  you swing both ways in many ways  just hard wired female from birth , I can look back and say no I did not miss out on life in being who I am ,

As for now im just a normal woman in thought and deed , and my life reflects that , and well accepted  in society ,

Do we all have to be ether just male or female and straight laced in a particular you have to be one or the other ,no we can be just normal in the way we are , and just because we happen to be different does that make us weird  , maybe to some  and those who know myself as a normal person  ...no... im just normal to them  so that's why we get on so well ,

My advantage is being who I am and born this way ,

...noeleena...

Noeleena, you have the right of it there.   The biggest hurdle in life is to accept who you are.  clearly you have done that.   There is no RIGHT way to be except to BE YOURSELF, once YOU have defined who 'yourself'' is.

eventually everything will fall in place and you may achieve balance.

good for you!!!!

I would have like to have grown up as a girl.

I started dressing around the age of 8. My teenage years & high school were rough. I always remember the one "homely" looking girl who blossoms into a hottie over summer vacation. How I wished that would have happened to me. I would often dream what it would be like to experience my first kiss or being asked to the prom. In that respect, I kinda envy the young t-girls of today. They are so lucky to be able to experience that now.

I do somewhat resent not being able to have the growing up experience as a girl. I remember the many times I was jealous of my sister and her friends. I am glad to have been a father to my children but wished I could have been more of a mother. At least they saw that it was OK for a man to cry from time to time and show emotion although I think my son was uncomfortable with it sometimes.

Now that I am beginning to let myself experience my feminine side more and more, I find that I am acting and thinking somewhat like and adolescent or pre-teen sometimes. I want to grow up fast and feel like the little girl putting on her mommies clothes etc. At times it is all clumsy and goofy but I see a transition happening as I photograph myself along the way.

Right now the little girl inside of me is growing up at a very fast rate and it is exciting. I know it is nothing like actually growing up as a girl but at the same time it is truly growing up. Making mistakes with makeup. Wearing the wrong style of clothes for my body. Learning to walk in heels. I am enjoying the process and though I want to be a full grown woman and have at times rushed it, I now know that I need to slow down and start working on the small details. And, it is not all about dressing or acting it is about being! Really being in my mind a girl/woman.

It is kind of hard going back and forth. I am looking forward to the time I fully come out and start living full-time as a woman. I know it is just around the bend as I find it harder and harder to revert to the male role that society expects from me.

Yes I miss having grown up as a girl but I embrace the process as it is happening now!

I had a 34" waist 30 years ago -29? Lucky girl! And I only WISH my life allowed me to have grown my hair out that long!Thick I have covered-the lady who cuts my hair always tells me I have some of the thickest hair she has ever seen. I wish I could tell her to style it for me to grow it out but not at this point anyway 🙁   (too much salt and pepper gray mixed in right now too and I'm not ready to have to keep up with coloring it all the time(though I have thought about it from time to time)

As an aside-my son (who has no CD/gender issues that I am aware of) has hair that makes him look like Jesus or Roger Daltrey from the Tommy era.  It's not fair...sigh...

Cynthia